Improvement in photographic backgrounds



I. w. TAB ER & T. H. BOYD.

PHOTOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND.

No 170,204, Patented 2301723, 1875.

N. PETERS, PHOTO-UTHOGRAPHER, WASHINGTON, D C,

UNITED STATES PATENT QFFIGE.

ISAIAH W. TABER AND THOMAS H. BOYD, OF SAN FRANCISCO, GAL.

IMPRQVEMEN T IN PHOTOGRAPHIC BACKGROUNDSX Specification forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 170,204, dated November 23, 1875; application filed June 17, 1874.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, ISAIAH W. TABER and THOMAS H. BoYD, of San Francisco city and county, State of California, have invented an Improved Photographic Background; and we do hereby declare the following description and accompanying drawings, are sufficient to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it most nearly appertains to make and use our said invention or improvement without further invention or experiment.

Our invention consists in the employmen of a stationary wire screen in front of a canvas background for the double purpose of protecting the canvas from injury, and providing a combination background picture, as will be more fully described in the following specitication.

The wire'cloth has painted upon it a portion of the scene which is to be employed as a background picture. The painting thus delineated should not fill the meshes or interstices of the wire-cloth, so that when the photographic background is produced upon the card it will have a peculiar softness, owing to the rays of light passing through the meshes of the cloth and striking the opaque or deadoolor canvas screen behind it.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, A is a canvas screen, such as is used for an ordinary photographic background. In front of this screen we place a wire screen, B. The

wire screen is permanent, while the canvas screen is movable.

The canvas screen can be painted with any desired picture or design, and the wire screen be painted with an opaque or dead color or the scene may be painted upon the wire screen, while the canvas is painted with an opaque or dead color.

A very convenient arrangement, and one which will produce a beautiful effect, can be obtained by painting a fixed scene upon one portion of the wire screen, while the remaining portion of the screen is of a plain color, and then painting the canvas with a picture opposite the plain portion of the wire screen, and an opaque or dead color opposite the painted portion of the wire screen, thus providing a combination scene which can be changed by substituting other canvas screens with other scenes behind the wire screen, so as to retain the permanent design of the wire screen, thus providing a variety of scenes with the same main' feature or foreground. The wire screen will then protect the canvas screen from injury, while it is not liable to be injured itself.

We are aware that backgrounds have been used composed of an opaque painted screen at the back, and a wire or net screen in front; but such we do not claim.

Having thus described our invention, What we claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

A photographic background composed of a stationary wire screen, B, in combination with a canvas screen, A, in the rear of said wire screen, each being painted with a partial scene or picture, so arranged that the wire screen, or portionof said screen-surface opposite the painted picture on the canvas background, is

ISAIAH w. TABER. n s. THOMAS HENRY BOYD. L. s. j Witnesses:

J NO. L. BOONE, 0. M. RICHARDSON. 

